The Rocket Grunt
by TheTrueTrashKing
Summary: Sometimes stories don't follow the cheery young protagonist with a heart of gold, this is one of those stories. Briar Yoruha is a basic level Team Rocket Grunt who has received his first Pokemon. What lies ahead for Briar can only be summed up in one word: Adventure.
1. The Rocket Grunt

["RISE AND SHINE PEOPLE, TIME TO GET TO WORK!"]

With a reluctant effort, I opened my eyes and pried myself away from the comforting embrace of sleep. The sound of an annoyingly familiar voice was prompting me to get up. All around me, the sounds of disgruntled groaning from the other sleepers filled the room. Sheesh, we have to get up at this hour every day and people still complain about it. Granted I can understand not wanting to wake up. But still, there's no use complaining about something that you've been doing and will continue to do for some time. While the most of bunkmates were still trying to convince themselves to get out from underneath the covers, I was making my way to the lockers with the other people who were used to the schedule. Now the men's locker room was just down the hall from the men's sleeping quarters. Even so, at this hour, walking down a cold hallway wearing only your sleepwear made for a very brisk walk.

Thankfully, the locker room itself was at least moderately warm, so we could strip down without dying of hypothermia. Shower time for a single person had to be five minutes or less, as per regulations. It helped cut down costs and get everyone on duty in an efficient manner. It also kept people from sitting in the shower for twenty minutes while ten people were waiting. I stripped down and headed for the nearest open shower, oh thank goodness the water was warm. Occasionally one of the showers wouldn't produce warm water and that made for a very jarring morning. Once I'd cleaned myself off, (and in only four minutes by the way), I dried my body and hair hurriedly and walked back to my locker. I spent almost twice as long drying myself off as I did taking that shower, funny how that works (it's mostly the hair). But once I was completely dry I finally started putting on my uniform. Black pants, a black shirt with a big red R plastered over it, grey cloves, grey boots, a bandana, and finally a black cap.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, I'm a grunt for Team Rocket.

Eating breakfast in the cafeteria is like looking over a sea of disappointment. The tables are lined with men and women who are (mostly) in their late twenties or early thirties. Most of them are failed Pokémon Trainers who joined Team Rocket because they were bitter. I guess after losing to so many kids who were better with Pokémon than them, they liked the idea of taking Pokémon away from them. For whatever reason it was, it left me in an awkward position, I was only seventeen years old, and I would turn eighteen in two months. When I first joined a year ago, they would look at me with a sense of bitterness, as if I had no right to be there because I still had my youth. And it always seemed like they knew that I had a different reason for being here than the rest of them, and they wanted to know what it was. To be honest, I don't have any real special reason for joining, no dark past or traumatic events, I simply joined Team Rocket because I wanted to take the road less traveled. Before I joined, I met many people who tried to train on their own, only to be defeated by some kid with a pokedex. So I decided to join Team Rocket, (even though I heard they were disbanded 20 years ago by a kid with a pokedex). Since I don't have enough luck to obtain a pokedex of my own, I would just have to use a different resource, the Team Rocket database.

After my ten minute breakfast, (regulated breakfast time is actually an hour, I just eat fast) I immediately reported to the head of my old unit, Captain Joseph. Joseph wasn't really high on the pecking order, he over saw a decent chunk of the labor division, but he wasn't an admin or anything. He was respected enough, though most people got annoyed whenever he started fawning over his rattata. I got along with the guy, never spoke to him much outside of taking orders, but he and I shared a laugh here and there. The reason I was reporting to him was because I was picking up some papers I needed him to sign. Specifically, unit transfer papers. After a year in Team Rocket, I had finally earned my promotion thanks to a successful mission and a few good words from Captain Joseph. After I got those papers back and properly filed, I would be transferred to the battle division. In Team Rocket, there are four main divisions, intel, research and development, labor, and battle. The labor division is the lowest of the low, the only members of the labor division are people whose rank isn't high enough for authorized pokémon use. The duties of the labor division are just to do the hands on jobs that aren't worth using pokémon for. That was the division I was a part of, until today.

After I retrieved the paper work and said proper goodbyes to Captain Morgan, I took my identification and transfer paper work to the intel division to have it properly filed. From the way I described it, it must sound like it didn't take long to get this all done, well unfortunately this whole process took me three hours. It didn't help that intel and labor were so far apart, or that intel makes you fill out several forms before even letting you in to the building. Even so, I managed to get my transfer cleared, as of that moment, I was now a member of Team Rocket's battle division. Now when I transferred into battle division, I was given only level one pokémon authorization, meaning I was allowed to keep only one pokémon. Any other Pokémon caught were to be brought back and sent off into Team Rocket's storehouses, where they would be sorted for either: battle, release, breeding, or research. I wasn't even allowed to choose my first Pokémon, intel would look over my records and assign a Pokémon to me.

I reported to the front office of the battle division, it was there that I would receive my pokémon. The woman at the desk looked less interested in my job than I did, she didn't even look up from her computer when she asked:

["Name?"]

["Oh, Briar Yoruha."] I replied

She held out her hand and said ["ID card."]

I pulled out the piece of plastic and handed it to her. Within seconds she had completely read my file, the transfer information and the Pokémon Intel had chosen for me. She closed my file and opened a different program, she typed in a code and I heard sounds coming from the wall to right of her desk. She looked back up at me and said

["Your Pokémon is in that hatch on the wall over there."] Then she returned to her computer and didn't say anything else.

I walked over to the hatch on the wall and opened it, inside was a simple pokeball. I picked up the ball, it felt so strange in my hands, and it had only been a year and half since I last held one, but it still felt like the first time. Well, I decided to take a look and see just who had been assigned to me, probably a zubat or something, intel never liked to give their best to newbies. I tossed the pokeball slightly into the air and out popped a small grey Pokémon on all fours, it had a fluffy tail and pointed ears. I recognized this Pokémon instantly, it was a poochyena. The little guy looked up at me with a curious expression and I returned the emotion. I looked back to the woman at the desk.

["I think there's been some sort of mistake."] I said

["Why's that?"] She grimaced

"[This is a poochyena.]" I replied

["So?"]

["We're in Kanto, there are rarely ever poochyena found in Kanto."] I explained

["Well, that's what Intel assigned you, do you want to file a complaint?"] The look in both of our eyes said neither of us wanted to do that.

["No, Poochyena is fine, just an odd choice,"] after my response, she went back to her computer and I looked back at my new partner. I sank down to my knees to get closer to its eye level, ["alright, pal, starting today, you and I are gonna be partners, so let's get along."]

I held out my hand half-heartedly, only to be pleasantly surprised when the little guy put his paw in my hand. Admittedly it was one of the most adorable things I had ever seen.

["Okay, it may not be how a lot of guys work around her but I'm going to give you a nickname. How about…. Yena?"]

Okay, okay so it wasn't exactly original, but really, who looks at a Pokémon and names it something normal and unrelated, like Tim? Yena looked at me with the same curious look, as if he didn't care about his name too much.

"Alright, Yena it is." I pet him behind the ears and he yipped excitedly, yeah I definitely lucked out here, I could feel my disinterest and sarcasm leaving me. The second I put Yena back in his pokeball it all came flooding back though. I might have joined Team Rocket of my own volition, but it didn't stop me from hating everything around me.

Except Yena, of course.

I met my new commanding officer soon after receiving Yena, didn't catch his name, didn't really need to, you could tell him apart because of his ridiculously purple hair. The man seemed very proud of it, despite how bad of a dye job it was. I barely had any time to move my things from Labor to Battle before he called me and a few others in for a mission. I stood beside 4 other members of the battle division with only level one authorization like me. Our purple haired commanding officer gave us our mission. Apparently a shipment of pokémon being sent from Viridian to Celadon had run into some difficulties and lost about half of the cargo near Mount Moon. The Pokémon weren't that high level, but they were mostly foreign pokémon, meaning that if people saw them then they would know of our shipping routes. Our mission was to find and catch all of the Pokémon that had escaped from the shipment. We were each given a list of the escaped pokémon, and 30 empty pokeballs each. The current Rocket base we were located to the west of Cerulean City, meaning it would only take us about half a day to reach Mount Moon. We listened to the rest of purple hair's directions and then made way to the vehicles nearby.

The assigned grunts didn't really speak to me, or each other for that matter, it seemed like they were all rookies to the Battle division as well. Chances were that this mission gave the higher ups a chance to test the skills of newbies. When we arrived at Mount Moon, we immediately summoned our Pokémon. As I expected, the grunts each had basic Kanto pokémon, including zubat, paras, rattata, and spearow. I was the only one with a foreign partner pokémon, I still don't understand why that was.

We split up and began searching for the missing pokémon. Yena and I searched around the mountain itself, looking for any pokémon that might have climbed up there. While we were searching I took the opportunity to check Yena's level and moves. Yena was level seven, and as expected, he knew tackle, howl, and sand attack, all standard for a poochyena of his level. However, I was shocked to find he knew a fourth move, and an unconventional one at that. For some reason, Yena knew thunder fang. I had heard that there were pokémon out there who inherited skills and abilities from their parents and could execute them flawlessly at birth, Yena must have been one of those pokémon.

On Mount Moon, Yena and I managed to find and capture five of the missing pokémon, well technically, we only captured four of them, and the fifth was a pokémon called pawniard. We didn't find it, it found us, it never fought back, it didn't try to run, and all it did was watch us. Honestly it was a little creepy. We scoured that mountain side for anymore of the missing Pokémon but found none of them, however, to say our trek on Mount Moon ended there would be a huge lie.

The second it came into view, I grabbed Yena and dove behind a nearby tree. Luckily we were quiet enough for it not to hear us, that or it thought we weren't worth worrying about. It was almost surreal to see there. Not just because it was not of Kanto, but because it wasn't on the list of missing Pokémon either. Yena and I had come across a level forty four wild metang on Mount Moon. It was at this time I remembered one of Team Rocket's most important rules, "Complete the mission above all else, but don't waste an opportunity to capture valuable Pokémon." Battling the other Pokémon we needed to capture had raised Yena's level to level 9, but it still left us at a huge disadvantage against that metang. I sat behind that tree, wracking my brain to formulate a plan to capture this rare prey before me, but nothing reasonable came to mind. Even if I somehow got all the Pokémon I retrieved to follow my instructions, there was no way we could take down that metang before it took us down. I looked over at it, metang, a strong steel and psychic type Pokémon from Hoenn, its metal shell looked like it could take an explosion head on. Yena's attack would deal so little damage that metang wouldn't even notice. With that thought in mind, I finally came up with a plan.

Was I doing something stupid? Some would say yes. Did I have a plan? Of course. Was it one of the most terrifying experiences in my life? Most certainly. I gave orders to Yena and left my cover, the metang nearby noticed me and stared me down, these things were supposed to me incredibly intelligent, their minds were like super computers, if so, it was probably analyzing me. I didn't seem like much of a threat to it, so it turned away from me, disinterested. I needed its attention, it was essential to the plan. So I picked up a stone and chucked it at the metang, it bounced off of its left appendage. It looked back at me, then it looked away again, disinterested still. So I threw another rock at it, it looked back to me, slightly annoyed, but then looked away again, so I threw yet another rock at it, like the others, it bounced off of the metang. It tried to ignore me, hoping that I would stop on my own, but I continued to hurl rocks at it until, with a swift attack, the next stone I threw broke in midair. I recognized the nature of the attack it had used, bullet punch. The metang looked at me menacingly, as if breaking that rock was a warning that I should stop or else it would not hesitate to hurt me. I chucked another rock and it hit the metang right between the eyes.

Now seeing a pokémon angry is something every trainer has probably seen at some point. However, seeing a pokémon royally pissed was undoubtedly an uncommon sight, one I was privy to. It made a beeline for me, glowing energy surrounding its head, I dove out of the way and it charged past me. I heard the sound of a falling tree and turned to see the metang had knocked down the 20 foot tree I had been standing in front of with its zen headbutt. I didn't waste a second the instant that I saw what it was capable of, I scurried up another tree and watched the metang from up on its branches. If it tried to use zen headbutt again I would have a chance to jump for another tree, so I felt as though I was fairly safe. Sadly the genius figured that out too, so instead of using zen headbutt, it riddled the trunk of the tree with bullet punches. The shaking prevented me from getting the footing I needed and I fell with the tree once the metang's bullet punches had punched all the way through. I jumped from the branches as best as I could and rolled along the ground, I probably bruised a few things but otherwise, I was fine. I collected myself and looked up, what I found was the Metang, holding one of its claws in the air above me. It was giving me one last chance to apologize, to beg for forgiveness, to show it I was sorry. I picked up a rock and chucked it at its face.

Now as uncommon a sight as it was, there were a decent amount of trainers who had seen a pokémon that was royally pissed. However, there was even less trainers who had seen pokémon that were absolutely livid. Pokémon whose bodies were burning with anger, I was one of them. For a few seconds metang's face went murderously dark, and in those few seconds, I jumped away from that spot. Good thing I did too, because just before I got out of there, the spot I was in was no more. Instead, there was a crater created by metang's devastating meteor mash. I think it was safe to say that I had thoroughly grabbed metang's attention, perfect. Mmetang's defense was solid, we had no hope of defeating it in a head on battle, Yena's attacks were so weak that we wouldn't make a noticeable dent when we attacked. So we split the job, I distracted metang while Yena repeatedly used tackle on it, the attacks did so little damage that metang didn't notice that it was being attacked. I checked metang's current health, good it was low enough that we were able to launch phase 2.

["Yena! Switch to thunder fang!"] I yelled.

The Metang felt a jolt from behind. It didn't deal much more damage than tackle did, and we lost our sense of stealth, Yena was now known to metang. metang prepared to hit Yena with meteor mash when another rock came sailing from behind and bounced off it. It remembered its anger towards me and decided to use that meteor mash on me instead, but another jolt from behind broke its focus. It was starting to get annoyed with Yena, but I had to keep its anger focused on me until it finally worked.

Eventually, the metang used its brain to figure out that I was trying to keep it from attacking Yena, and it prepared to deal with him. It raised its claw and I cried for Yena to get away. That's when the metang's claw froze mid attack. A spark of electricity ran along its body while it was frozen, it was paralyzed! Yes! The purpose of thunder fang was to try and paralyze metang while adding some extra points of damage to it. I prayed to whatever all powerful pokémon ruled the universe and hurled a pokeball at it. The ball shook furiously three times, the pause between every shake made my heart skip a beat. Finally, the ball stopped shaking and it clicked. I looked at Yena excitedly and shouted:

["We did it!"]

Yena bolted to me and jumped into my arms, licking my face as I praised him.

I returned to my associates with the Pokémon I found, I didn't tell them about the metang, I figured they didn't need to know. Of course I didn't try to keep the thing either, the second I was able to I brought it to the woman at the front desk of the battle division, her eyes actually opened fully in shock. She seemed at a loss for words as she silently logged in my capture.

Although small and barely livable, the battle division members received their own rooms, there was a bed, a toilet and a dresser, nothing more. I changed out of my Team Rocket uniform and into my sleepwear. I would have to get the uniform cleaned, it was covered in dirt and possibly some of my blood, I couldn't tell. But that was something to be saved for tomorrow, for now, I was exhausted, and I needed to sleep. I threw myself on my bed, planting my head face first into my pillow, but as tired as I was, I couldn't sleep. I looked up at my dresser, sitting atop it was Yena's pokeball. I stared at it for two minutes before I reached over and picked it up, I let him out of the ball and he sat on the floor, that same curious expression on his face. I patted my bed and he jumped up onto it, he curled up beside me and closed his eyes. His fur was so soft and comfortable, and geez, he was so warm. Those were the last thoughts I had before I drifted into sleep beside Yena, my Pokémon.


	2. Training

The Battle division cafeteria was full of audible whispers and hushed voices the next day, why do people whisper that loudly? It's painfully obvious that they're trying to hide the fact that they're talking about someone in the room, so why bother? Needless to say, I was the subject of a lot of chatter today, the capture of that metang yesterday earned me a quick promotion, and I was now a rank 3 battle grunt. Now, I had some special rights, for one thing, I was now eligible to become a commanding officer, provided that no grunt of a higher rank was present. In addition, I was now allowed to carry up to three Pokémon, and unlike Yena, I was allowed to choose those Pokémon but only if I captured them myself (this did not include the metang from before, thing still hates me anyway). The funny thing is I only received the notification of my promotion this morning, and somehow word has already spread throughout the whole division. It seemed like almost everyone was gossiping about the kid who just transferred yesterday and was already a rank 3 battle grunt. I didn't really care about it, to be honest it felt odd to me as well. I mean I did make one hell of a capture for a rank one grunt with a level 9 poochyena, but this promotion still felt odd. I was rank 3 and the only Pokemon I had on me was a level 13 poochyena (Catching metang did wonders for Yena's level). Yena and I would have to do some training and catch some new members for the team.

I ate breakfast and decided to head to the training yard, I heard that the battle division had some state of the art training machines. Most of the other grunts usually avoid going to the training yard because they think catching or stealing a stronger pokémon will fix their lack of skills. After you join them, it's easy to see how they get beaten by real trainers a lot, they always think it's the Pokémon's fault. Well, I wasn't going to fall into the mindset, not now not ever. I walked up to a nearby touch screen monitor and opened the training menu. A long list of options appeared on the monitor, each option was a level set. Each set was about five levels each, for instance, the first set was: "1-5", the second was: "6-10", the third was "11-15" and so forth. I pressed the third set. Yena was level 13, so this would be the right range. Once I pressed that, a keypad appeared on the screen, and at the top it said:

[Please select number of Pokémon you wish to face in a row]

I thought about it for a moment, Yena needed some training but there was no need to push a barrage of unending opponents on the guy, just enough to get his level up, that's enough. I selected 8 and pressed enter. The screen displayed a loading bar before a text box popped up.

[Your standards have been processed! Training will begin momentarily.]

On the other side of the yard, a robotic arm came out of the wall. The arm was holding a pokeball, it threw it up into the air and a level 12 sandshrew jumped out. It was an interesting system I had to admit, and it allowed us to start simple, get ourselves in the groove.

["Alright Yena, let's face him head on! Use bite!"] I yelled.

Yena did as I said, he bolted towards the Sandshrew, fangs ready to bite the rodent Pokémon, however the sandshrew seemed to have more battle experience than I expected. It waited until Yena was in range and then used sand-attack, the attack hit Yena's eyes and he missed the sandshrew. Yena took a moment to shake the dirt out of his face, in that moment the sandshrew prepared to hit Yena with scratch.

["Yena! Use sand-attack as well!"] Yena didn't waste a second and immediately kicked up a bunch of dirt at sandshrew.

It didn't expect to be hit by its own maneuver it scrambled to get the dirt of its eyes while Yena resumed his attack.

["Yena! Go for the tail!"] Yena jumped around sandshrew and used bite.

The monitor beside me displayed both Pokémon's health, Sandshrew's health fell below half. Attacking the tail resulted in a critical hit to the Pokémon, but it wasn't out of the fight yet. The Sandshrew curled up into a ball, at first I thought it was using defense curl, but it was instead preparing rollout. It barreled towards Yena, but at its current speed, he was able to dodge it, however the more it rolled, the faster and stronger it got. We had to defeat it before rollout got too strong for Yena to handle, we needed to end this quickly.

"Yena! Howl!"

Yena raised his head and howled at the sky, then it looked back at the oncoming rollout with new strength.

"Now! Once again, use bite!"

The sandshrew's rollout was on a collision course for Yena, it seemed like he was going to take the attack dead on. Yena opened his maw and caught sandshrew in his mouth mid rollout. The sandshrew uncurled himself to see what was wrong, it seemed to be panicking a little. Yena lifted the sandshrew into the air as high as he could and slammed it onto the ground. The impact knocked sandshrew out cold. Alright, the first opponent was down and Yena had barely taken any damage, it was a good start that got our blood pumping. The sandshrew was returned to its pokeball and pulled back into the wall by the robotic arm.

Within seconds the arm pulled out another pokeball and called out our second opponent, this one would be trickier. It was a level 15 butterfree, two levels higher than Yena and evolved twice already. Like the sandshrew, the butterfree seemed experienced in battles, so it simply waited for Yena to attack. It probably was planning to make its move the second Yena attacked, all it had to do was wait. This B\butterfree had all the time in the world, however we didn't so we had to throw caution to the wind and attack.

["Yena! Hit it with bite!"] I commanded.

Yena charged at the butterfree and jumped up to attack it, unfortunately my fears were confirmed as Yena was hit point blank with sleep powder from butterfree. He landed on his feet in a drowsy state before his eyes closed and he fell to ground, sleeping like the adorable creature that he was. It was no time to be fawning over my precious Yena, he was in danger, and he was now vulnerable to butterfree's attacks. The butterfree saw its chance and took it, its eyes glowed as it unleashed an attack upon Yena.

But there was no effect, the butterfree looked confused as to why it didn't work, but I wasn't. butterfree tried to use confusion on Yena, but confusion was a psychic type move. Unfortunately for butterfree, Yena was a dark type pokémon, psychic type moves had no effect whatsoever. Once it recovered from the shock of not being able to used confusion on Yena, it started trying to hit Yena with poison powder and stun spore. Unfortunately for it, the poison and paralysis effects only manifest in conscious Pokémon, sleeping Pokémon were completely unaffected. Our current situation was a stalemate, butterfree couldn't attack Yena, and for the moment, Yena couldn't attack butterfree. The second Yena woke up, it would probably hit Yena with poison powder, and considering that we had 6 other opponents after this, it would very bad for us if Yena was poisoned. My mind raced to find a solution that would get us out of this mess without putting Yena in a weakened state. Luckily I caught a glance, of some barely noticeable movement, butterfree hadn't noticed, thankfully, but Yena's paw was lightly being lifted off of and pressed back onto the ground slowly. Yena was trying to relay a message to me, he was awake and waiting for me to give him a command while pretending to still be asleep.

We waited, we waited and we continued to wait for the perfect opportunity, it turned into a competition of patience between us and Butterfree. Eventually, our patience paid off, as butterfree's wore thin, it closed the distance between it and Yena, and cautiously started poking it. Yena and I were anxious to attack now but we knew that the butterfree was ready to put space between it and Yena the second he showed it that he was awake. So we continued to wait, until the butterfree's frustration had built up to the point where it began jumping up and down on Yena. I timed its jumping pattern and when it was the perfect moment:

["Yena! Now! The foot!"] I yelled.

Yena's head turned towards the bouncing butterfree and he used bite on its foot. In a panic the butterfree tried to fly away, but Yena was too strong to let it go. He slammed the butterfree down onto the ground like what he did with sandshrew, and without any hesitation I told him to give it the final blow.

["Yena! Thunder fang!"]

Yena jumped on top of the butterfree's wing to keep it from flying off and then hit its body with thunder fang. The butterfree's body shook with electricity, being a flying type had its downsides at times. I looked over at the screen beside me, as I'd hoped, thunder fang managed to wipe the rest of butterfree's health away. I watched as the screen analyzed Yena's experience gain, he was elevated to level 14 from the experience he gained in that fight. The robotic arm returned butterfree back to its pokeball and brought out another.

Yena held perfectly still as I sprayed him with a potion, I couldn't tell if he was being very compliant or if he was too exhausted to move around much. Either way, it made it easier to get him healed up after that barrage of battles. He held his own against 8 opponents one after another impressively, and now he had leveled up to level 17. His health had been lowered considerably though, I wasn't sure how we had managed to win the last battle, but Yena was a skilled Pokémon in his own right, maybe he inherited battle prowess from his parents as well. I finished treating his injuries and stood up. He looked at me with that adorable curious face of his, and a smiled back.

["Let's go get something to eat Yena"] I said

He yipped excitedly and jumped up, ready to leave, looks like the potion did its trick. We started walking to the cafeteria when we heard a commotion nearby. The cluster of sounds included shouting, several running footsteps, the flapping of wings, and the sound of people crashing into multiple obstructions. I turned to find a group of grunts chasing a murkrow angrily, it had several Rocket badges in its mouth, from the context I was given, I was able to figure out what was happening easily. I looked at the murkrow and got an idea, an idea I shared with Yena quietly.

["Stand down guys, I'll handle this"] I told the other Rocket grunts.

I held up my badge, it indicated that I was a rank three battle grunt, and luckily no one of a higher rank was among the angry pursuers, so they listened and backed down. The murkrow landed on a nearby table and looked over one of the badges it was holding, in total it had three badges, two were rank one, and one was rank two. I walked close enough to the murkrow that I got its attention, but I maintained enough distance to keep it from flying away.

["Hey there fella, you like these?"] I held up my badge and its gaze was directed right at it.

I aimed the badge so that the sun would reflect off of it enough to make it shine, I wasn't sure if the shininess was why it stole the badges, but it didn't hurt to make it more appealing. The murkrow showed interest in the badge but it was smart, it knew that it wouldn't be a good idea to fly right at me. So we stared at each other, waiting for the other to make a move, its attention was fully on me, just like with the metang.

["Thunder Fang."] I said calmly.

Yena jumped up from behind the murkrow and used thunder fang on the Pokémon, the murkrow tried to fly away but Yena had a good grip on its wing. While he held it in place, I threw a pokeball at it. The pokeball bounced off of its head and the capture net pulled it inside, the ball landed on the table and shook three times, then clicked. I walked over and picked up the pokeball I looked down at Yena who held up his head, waiting to be praised for his excellent work.

"Good Job Yena" I reached down and pet his head, he leaned into my hand adorably.

After returning the stolen badges to the grunts nearby, I called out the murkrow, it was still weak and paralyzed from Yena's attack just a moment ago. I leaned down and pulled out a paralyze heal and a potion and started treating the murkrow. Once it was in proper condition I stood up and got a good look at it, a Murkrow, certainly would be handy considering Yena couldn't fly and at least it wasn't as commonly used as zubat. The murkrow looked over at Yena grudgingly, must still be angry about the thunder fang it received a minute ago. It leaned over and pecked Yena in the forehead, he didn't take to that kindly and started growling at the murkrow. The murkrow raised its wings and the two stared each other down.

["Alright you two, calm down, that's no attitude for teammates to be taking up with each other"] I said sternly.

The murkrow and Yena looked up at me, they exchanged a begrudging glanced, then looked right back up at me.

"Yena, I've decided that this murkrow is going to be our new teammate so try to get along, okay?" I'm pretty sure Yena rolled his eyes at me but I'm going to ignore it. "And murkrow, welcome to the team, we need to come up with a nickname for you though." I thought about it for a moment "Well considering what just transpired, how about we call you Badge?" I said. Badge shrugged, or at least tried to, my point was he didn't seem to care. Alright, so Badge it was, interesting name for a bird, but it fit, somehow.

["Nice catch Kid,"] A voice came from behind me.

I turned to find a Rocket admin standing behind me, I instantly called Yena and Badge back to their pokeballs and stood at attention.

["Thank you for your kind words, Ma'am!"] I said.

The woman in front of me was Kimberly, a thirty-one year old Rocket Admin who often wore purple business attire. I had been informed of the admins in my first few days in Team Rocket. Each division had three admins commanded and ran the organization, in total there were twelve of them, Kimberly was one of those twelve.

["At ease, Briar, there's no need for formalities, I'm simply here to discuss your next mission"] She said.

I eased up ["My next mission, Ma'am?"]

["Yes, I have the files right here," She held up a folder. "please have a seat."]

I sat down at the nearby table and she sat down on the opposite side. She placed the folder in front of me and then looked me directly in the eye, it was an intimidating feeling but I somehow kept my cool.

]"Briar, a certain item has come into the possession of the Pewter City Museum," She opened the folder and pulled out a photo of a broken stone tablet with the language of the Unown written on it. "This item, is the other half of an important tablet that we already possess, but to full decipher the message, we need the other half of the tablet, that's where you come in" She moved the phot aside and pulled up some transceiver records. "This is a phone call that was made by Pewter City's gym leader, Brock, It turns out that he will be leaving Pewter City to investigate Mount Moon tomorrow he won't be back for 3 days, that's when we need you to lead a team and raid the Pewter City Museum, Understand?" She pushed the folder closer to me "Inside is the information on the grunts that will be joining you, their records, their Pokémon and their skills, I've also included the guard information as well."]

I ran through the papers and sure enough most of the information necessary was here. I was impressed with how thorough it was, I looked up at Kimberly and gave a serious nod.

["Alright Ma'am, I promise we'll retrieve that tablet."]

["Good, by the way, to make sure this goes well, I will also be giving you this Pokémon" She pulled out a pokeball and placed it before me. "Pewter City is known for its Rock type Pokémon so taking this steel type should come in handy."]

I took the pokeball and looked inside, it was a pawniard, no, not just that, it was the same pawniard from that shipment we recovered, the one that didn't put up a fight. Well, it looks like I've filled my team for now, to receive a Pokémon from an Admin, quite an honor. I stood up and saluted Kimberly

["I will gather the team and assemble the tools needed for the job immediately ma'am, permission to be dismissed?"]

She chuckled and answered ["Permission granted Briar, good luck"]

I nodded and walked off to get everything in order, there was so much prep work to be done, I was given an important job and I was not going to fail.

A conversation unknown to Briar"

["Enthusiastic, isn't he?"] A voice said from the other side of the training yard

["Of course, isn't that why you chose him for the job, Boss Giovanni?"]


	3. The Museum Operation

Before me, five battle grunts and two labor grunts stood at attention, awaiting the mission briefing from their team leader, AKA: me. I paced back and forth in front of the grunts, sizing them up and trying to make myself seem more intimidating and in command. I opened the folder that Kimberly gave me and flipped through the papers until I reached the grunt files. I read through the information on the battle grunts. They weren't the most experienced grunts in the division but after reading over their records, I was confident that they would be able to handle a job like this. Alright, this was the time to act like a man in charge, I swallowed nervously and steeled myself.

["Alright everyone, give me your utmost attention!"] I boomed.

["Yes Sir!"] The grunts replied all at once, I almost flinched in response.

["Our mission is to raid the Pewter City Museum and retrieve this," I pulled out the photo of the stone tablet and showed it to them. "artifact here. I'm unaware as to why the higher ups want it, but the fact remains that they want it. So! In fifty minutes we will be boarding a chopper and heading to Pewter City, the mission will begin at ten o'clock tonight. The reason this mission will occur at that time is because at ten o'clock the museum goes completely dark, save for the few security guards on duty. Here is the plan,"]

I turned and pointed at the grunts at the end, they listened intently

["Murray, Hudson, Ramis. You three will be leading a decoy assault on the ancient pokémon research department. You'll need to distract the security guards long enough for the rest of us to break in and steal the tablet quietly. However if you get the chance to grab something valuable then take it. But once we get the tablet we'll send out a signal, once you see that signal you are to withdraw and meet up with the rest of us immediately, understand?"]

The three of them responded at once ["Yes Sir!"]

I continued explaining the plan ["Alright, now for the retrieval team." I turned to face the rest of the grunts. "The artifact is being kept in a specially made glass case that is five inches thick and designed to take an attack from even and onix. Which is why I have procured a device from R&D that should allow us to cut through the glass. Harrison, I was told you know how to operate such a device."]

["What is the model sir?"] Harrison asked.

["It is a 19-77 SW cutter."] I replied.

["Ah, yes, I am able to operate that device.] He sighed in relief.

["Excellent. Mark, once Harrison has cut through, you will remove the artifact and fasten it into a special case. As for the remaining battle grunts, Fisher, Jones, I want you two to stand guard while the labor grunts extract the artifact."] Fisher and Jones nodded.

["Alright, is everyone clear on their roles?"] I asked.

["Yes sir!"] They once again answered all at once.

I turned and walked away, I was going to make sure the arrangements for the helicopter were in order, that and I needed to get away from them so that I could breath. I was doing my best to come off as on top and in charge but man, I was so nervous.

Once the travel arrangements were set in stone, I called for Harrison and Mark to assist me in loading the necessary equipment onto the helicopter. It was funny, my third day in the battle division and I was loading mission equipment again. I guess you can take the grunt out of labor but you can't take the labor out of the grunt. Once everything was in order I called the grunts to the helicopter and I informed them about a quick detour we had to take.

["The reason this mission is taking place today, is because the Pewter City gym leader, Brock, will be unavailable for 3 days. However, if word reaches him that the museum is being attacked via transceiver, there is no doubt he will race back to defend it. We cannot account for how long it will take him to travel back, so we have to provide a distraction just in case." I turned to the rank 2 battle grunt. "You have a voltorb correct?"]

["Yes sir!"] He responded.

["Does it know self-destruct or explosion?"] I asked.

["Yes, it knows self-destruct"] He nodded.

Excellent, just what we needed for the plan I had in mind. ["Alright, team, load up and let's move out!"]

The 8 of us boarded the helicopter and fastened ourselves in. Once we were ready, I gave the pilot the go ahead and we set out for Mount Moon. Since we were in a helicopter, it only took us an hour and a half to reach the other side of the mountain. I had the pilot land us on the mountain a fair distance above the base. I told Hudson to follow me and for the other grunts to remain in the helicopter. He followed after me quietly, he didn't know why I needed voltorb or what I had planned, but he listened to me without question. After ten minutes of searching we came across what I had been searching for, a golem nest, and as luck would have it, they were sleeping.

["Hudson, bring out your voltorb near the edge of that golem pile."] I directed.

He did as he was told, the little pokeball like pokémon sat beside a sleeping golem waiting for instruction.

["Give it the order."] I told Hudson

["Right, voltorb! Self-destruct!"] He ordered.

The voltorb's body glowed as energy built up inside it, it shook a bit as its body continued to build energy until it could no longer contain the power. The explosion went off on the golem nest, the move wouldn't be able to damage the pokémon but the force of the blast did send them rolling down the mountain. I watched as the golem tumbled down the mountain, several geodude and graveler rolling behind them.

["Good work Hudson, recall your voltorb and let's head back to the chopper."] I told him.

["Right away sir." He recalled the fainted voltorb and we started heading back. "By the way sir, what did that accomplish? If you don't mind me asking."]

Even when curious he was polite.

["Hudson, at the base of the mountain there's a pokémon center, that self-destruct of yours just sent a bunch of pokémon that were rudely awakened by a sudden explosion. Once they stop rolling they will undoubtedly start rampaging, there's no way a rock type expert like Brock would ignore something like that"] I explained.

["I see, but why use a voltorb, why not use dynamite?"] He asked.

["Because it's important that no one realizes we were behind this as well, since we used self-destruct, then investigators will just think that it was a graveler using self-destruct."]

He accepted my explanation, I almost saw the gears in his head turn as he went through my plan on his own. We returned to the helicopter and set out once again for Pewter City. I expected more people to ask what it was we left do to, but they remained quiet and dutiful, like perfect soldiers. In all honesty I shouldn't be surprised I was the same when I was given a mission. I think that it only felt foreign to me because this time I was the one in charge. It felt like someone should be questioning what I was doing, hell, I was questioning what I was doing. Heaven's sake I just sent a horde of angry, possibly explosive pokémon to attack a peaceful refuge where pokémon are healed free of charge. I know that I'm part of an international crime syndicate but man, what I did was pretty demented. Well, pokémon centers were usually prepared for situations that could occur, so it would probably be fine. At least, that's what I told myself, that's what I would continue to tell myself and it is still what I tell myself.

We arrived in Pewter City at sunset, around 8:30. We landed to the north of the Pewter City museum and began preparing for the mission. Hudson had his voltorb's health restored before he, Murray and Ramis led the decoy assault on the ancient pokémon research department. For the mission, I had requested earpieces for the eight of us for easy communication. We prepared the equipment and split up afterwards. I took Fisher, Jones, Harrison and Mark to a spot just outside of the museum's security camera feed. At 9:30 the museum closed, at 9:45 most of the employees went home, and at 10:00 the lights went out around the museum. The operation had officially begun, we just had to wait for the signal from the decoy team before we could move in.

In the distance, the sounds of fighting could be heard, the decoy team was engaging the security guards. Eventually the signal we received the signal, a fireball from Ramis's magmar shot into the sky and dispersed, we immediately started moving in. Jones was the one who took out the cameras. She called out her porygon and told it to mess with the camera, it dove into the camera and scrambled the electronics within. With the cameras down, we were free to break into the museum sneakily, doing our best not to draw attention to ourselves. We used the porygon to hack into the museum locks on the way. The more valuable objects were guarded by a special lock that not even porygon could hack. Luckily for us, the tablet piece wasn't one of those items, the museum was more interested on where it came from rather than what it could mean. We reached the room with the tablet inside and everyone immediately got into position. Jones and Fisher left the room and stood guard outside while Harrison, Mark and I began to retrieve the tablet. Harrison set up the equipment while Mark offered what little assistance she could, I simply watched as it unfolded and kept tabs on the decoy team.

Everything was going off without a hitch until Jones sent me a communication,

["Sir! We have a problem!"] She said.

["What do you mean? What is the problem?"] I replied, I heard a loud noise coming from over the earpiece as well as right outside the door to the room.

["Some kid followed us in, I tried to kick him out but he beat my pokémon, I swear if porygon wasn't in the camera network I would have had him!"] Jones sounded irritated.

["Calm down, Jones, where is this kid now?"] We still had a few minutes to go before the extraction was complete.

["Fisher is battling him right now, but it doesn't look good-"] Her communication ended abruptly.

["Jones? Jones do you copy?"] I asked.

["Fisher's been beat sir, the kid is heading your way, and he's got a pokedex."] She responded.

Oh no, oh no no no.

I heard stories about kids like this all over the syndicate. They get extra information during battles from their pokedex, making it harder for basic fighters to beat them. Fisher and Jones were beaten, and since Harrison and Mark were only labor grunts, that only me to fight this kid. I walked towards the door and waited for whoever would walk inside. The door opened quickly and a kid, about 12 years old burst in, he had a determined look on his face and he stared me down intently.

I spoke slowly and coolly, trying to appear intimidating ["Slow down kid, there's no need for you to go any farther"]

["You! Team Rocket!" He pointed directly at me "I'm here to stop you!"]

["Well that is unfortunate, because here I am, to stop you from stopping us"] I hope that sounded cool.

The kid pulled out a pokeball and I responded in kind, he called out a beedrill and I called out Badge. The battle seemed to be in my favor, beedrill was a bug type who was weak to flying types like murkrow. However, the beedrill had evolved twice meaning its stats would be larger than most unevolved pokémon. I checked its level, the beedrill was only level 15, Badge was level 18, the advantage was apparent. I saw the kid get frustrated as he checked Badge's level, the gravity of the situation dawning on him.

["The first move is yours, kid"] I acted cordially.

["Beedy! Use poison sting!"] The Beedrill responded to the kid's command, it shot forward, stingers aiming for Badge's torso.

["Badge, dodge it."] Badge maneuvered out of the way of the beedrill's attack and flew upward. This beedrill probably only recently evolved, meaning it wasn't used as to flying as Badge was yet. ["Badge, use wing attack."]

Badge stopped flying upward and did a nose dive towards the beedrill, wings at the ready.

["Beedy! Use Harden!"] The kid commanded. The beedrill's exoskeleton hardened, its defenses were raised and it took Badge's attack head on.

["Ugh, damn it, hit him with another wing attack, Badge!"] It totally slipped my mind that I cursed in front of a child.

["Beedy! Keep using harden!"] The beedrill listened and took even less damage from Badge's next attacks. Eventually, the beedrill took little damage from every hit.

The kid looked proud of his strategy, as if telling a pokémon to keep raising its defenses was a brilliant move. The beedrill had fallen to almost half health and had raised its defensive as high as it could. The kid told his beedrill to use poison sting again, now that its defense was near impenetrable. It flew right at Badge, preparing to hit him with the poison type move, once the beedrill was close enough, I told Badge to use our countermeasure.

["Badge, use haze."]

Badge opened his beak and a fog like gas surrounded beedrill, the defenses it had worked to raise were now gone. Unfortunately, the poison sting had landed on Badge, and Badge had been successfully poisoned. Luckily, the distance between the two was too short for the beedrill to defend against Badge's attack.

["Wing attack."] Honestly it felt like an execution.

Badge responded quickly, flying straight at the beedrill and taking it down with the attack. The kid gritted his teeth and called the beedrill back to its pokeball, Badge landed on the ground and twitched, taking damage from the poison.

["It could be over right now, just turn around and run home."] I sounded like a huge douche.

He didn't respond, he just grabbed a new pokeball and called out a charmander. The little flame lizard, looked menacingly at Badge, quite brave for a pokémon three levels weaker than its opponent. Then again, Badge had taken a decent amount of damage and the poison was draining his health. We had to do what we could to take it down before Badge fainted.

["Badge, wing attack!"] I was hesitant, but decided to make the first attack.

Badge flew directly at the charmander, wings at the ready, unfortunately, the kid was hoping for that attack.

["Charmy! Use ember! Aim for the eyes!"] He commanded.

The charmander opened its maw and hot embers flew out at Badge and hit him in his face. He shut his eyes and flew off course from the attack and crashed into the ground near the charmander. He tried to rub his eyes but the poison in his system made him twitch, he was at the kid's mercy. The kid didn't seem too merciful, he didn't waste a second and told his charmander to attack again.

["Charmy! Use scratch!"] He cheered. Honestly it felt a little sinister how excited he was to finish off Badge.

The charmander swiped at Badge, hitting him with a strong enough scratch to finish off Badge's remaining health. With an annoyed expression, I called Badge back to his pokeball and called out Yena.

["Gotta admit kid, that was a pretty dirty maneuver you pulled, I'm impressed, maybe you'll join Team Rocket someday,"] I chuckled.

["I'll never join you, you're evil!"] He shouted, pointing at me again, seriously what was with that pose?

["That's subjective but I get that you're too undeveloped to care, Yena, rush that charmander."] Yena sped forward towards charmander. The kid smiled and yelled.

["The same attack again? Alright, Charmy! Use ember, aim for the eyes again!"] He said. The charmander, fired ember at Yena again.

["Yena, use sand-attack!"] Yena grit his teeth and attack the charmander.

The charmander was caught off guard, I was too. I had no idea if sand-attack could work indoors, but Yena showed me how. He spun around and flicked dirt from his tail into the charmander's face, hitting it in the eyes.

["Yena, use bite, give him a toss!"] I told him to use our favorite maneuver.

Yena bit down on the charmander's tail, avoiding the flame as he did so. The charmander screamed in pain as it received the attack. Before it had any time to react, Yena started spinning it around and around and then tossed it towards the other side of the room.

["Charmy!"] The kid shouted. He dashed back and jumped, catching the charmander mid-air and cradling it, for sarcasm points, I started clapping. ["Charmy, are you okay?"] The charmander in his arms responded weakly. ["I know it's hard, I'm sorry, but we can't lose, we have to win, I believe in you Charmy!"] I was about to chide the kid on his cliché lines when the charmander started glowing.

["Oh boy…"] This wasn't gonna be good for us.

The glowing charmander grew too big for his trainer's arms and stood on the ground. The light show the charmander gave off ended abruptly, and a charmeleon stood in its place. It growled ferociously at Yena, who growled right back, yeah that's my boy.

["Charmy! You evolved!"] Talk about stating the obvious, kid. ["Alright Charmy! Let's win this, use dragon rage!"]

At his command, the charmeleon fired a billowy blue flame at Yena. This was bad, dragon rage did a set amount of damage every time, no matter what, and for low level pokémon it was devastating.

["Yena! Dodge!"] Yena just barely avoided the attack, the sand-attack from before was still in effect. The games were over, we had to be 100% completely serious right now, otherwise we might be in serious trouble. ["Use thunder fang!"]

Yena charged the charmeleon dead on, his fangs buzzing with an electric current. The kid directed his charmeleon toward Yena,

["Use dragon rage again Charmy!"] He yelled excitedly.

The charmeleon turned to Yena and attack with dragon rage again. I got frustrated with this, I told Yena to dodge again, he couldn't spare the health necessary to take the attack. However, I watched as Yena disobeyed me and charged directly into the charmeleon's dragon rage.

["YENA!"] I shouted, concerned.

What the hell was he thinking? The flames had enveloped him, I couldn't even see how far he'd made it in. I thought he was done for, I prepared his pokeball, ready to call him back and switched to that pawniard I was given. Then I saw a glow emanating from the flames, growing larger and larger as it moved towards the charmeleon. The kid and I watched intently as a mightyena burst out from the flames and charged the other pokémon. It leapt onto the charmeleon, pinning it to the ground and then sank its teeth into its neck. The charmeleon screamed as an electric shock shook its entire body until it fainted. The mightyena jumped away from the charmeleon and it bounded towards me, looking for praise. Yena had evolved mid battle like that charmeleon and gained enough health to take dragon rage head on then use it to surprise his opponent. If I wasn't acting like the cool bad guy right now, I would have bent down and started kissing him I was so proud. But I settled with just giving him a pat on the head and a smile, he seemed happy with that.

["Charmy? No! Charmy, you can't lose! You never lose! Charmy!"] The kid dove forward and tried to lift up the charmeleon as best he could.

["You got determination kid, you and your pokémon both, but determination only gets you so far."] I sounded so cheesy that I was almost disgusted. The kid reached for his belt, trying to pull out more pokémon, but thanks to his battles with Fisher and Jones, he was out of usable pokémon. ["You put up a good fight, kid, had me on the run for a bit there, but it wasn't enough."] I walked towards him, slowly. He tried to shimmy himself back still holding the charmeleon in his arms, apparently I was pretty scary to him. ["As a sign of a good opponent, I'm going to give you this chance,"] I knelt down and met him at eye level. ["Turn around, run away and don't look back, if you can do that, then I might not take your pokémon from you, okay?"] He shook in terror at my words. He called back his charmeleon and bolted from the room, I heard his footsteps thunder out the hall and out the building. Once he was far enough away, I let out a huge sigh and looked at Yena.

["That was stressful, but look at you! You evolved!"] I held out my arms for him and he jumped up. He was too big to fit into my arms now so he just but his front paws on my chest and nuzzled me. I hugged him around his neck and praised him openly. ["And the way you evolved in the middle of that dragon rage? That was so cool!"] He licked my face happily.

Our touching moment was interrupted by Mark.

["Sir, extraction is complete, we've secured the tablet fragment."]

["Alright, pack it up and let's get out of here, if that kid has told or tells anyone then we need to leave as soon as possible."] I said.

I told Fisher and Jones to head for the helicopter and tell the pilot to start it up. Harrison and Mark brought me the case with the tablet inside and we exited the museum. I called up the decoy team and let them know we the package was secure, and that it was time to withdraw.

["Roger that, we'll retreat immedia- Oh crap!"] He shouted mid-sentence.

["What's happening Hudson? What's wrong!? Speak to me!"] I shouted into the earpiece.

["It's Brock! I can see him in the distance he's heading to our location, and fast!"]

Damn it! How did he get back so fast?! The mission had only lasted an hour, how could he have settled the incident from before and made it back in time?

["Get to the helicopter, fast."] I told Harrison and Mark, and we sprinted to it.

The Helicopter was ready to move, it hover above the ground slightly, waiting for us. We secured the package in the back and jumped inside, we just needed the decoy team to arrive.

["Get us in the air! We'll drop a ladder for them but we need to be ready to go the second they get on!"] I shouted.

The pilot lifted us into the air and I setup the ladder, we were waiting impatiently for the decoy team. I saw them coming in the distance, Ramis, Hudson and Murray were sprinting as fast as they could towards the ladder. A fair distance behind them, a man in about his early forties sat atop a rhyhorn and was closing the distance between them. It was Brock, an experienced gym leader who made it a point to interfere with Team Rocket activities. The decoy team ran to the ladder and started climbing, once they were all on I shouted to the pilot.

["They're on! Go go go!"]

The pilot responded and started to fly away from the area, I thought we were in the clear for a moment, but I was wrong. The helicopter stopped abruptly, mid-air, the blades were still spinning but we weren't going anywhere. I looked outside, an onix had grabbed the bottom of the helicopter and it was preventing us from leaving. I watched as Brock climbed the onix toward us, his gruff face was remarkably intimidating. I tried desperately to think of a way out of this, but nothing was coming to mind. That's when the third pokeball at my waist shook and the pawniard jumped out. She jumped from the helicopter and onto the onix's face, the blades on her arms shined brightly and she unleashed a barrage of metal claws upon the onix's face. Eventually, the onix could take no more and let go of the helicopter, falling back to the ground. The pawniard fell with it, I didn't have time to think, otherwise my hand might not have started bleeding. I gripped the pawniard's blade in my hand and pulled it onto the helicopter. I looked at the cut on my hand and told Harrison to hand me the first aid kit next to him. I looked at the pawniard, who was staring at me intently and I chuckled.

["Thanks, you really saved our asses there"] I told her.

She shook her head embarrassingly then she pointed at my bleeding hand, specifically, at the cut it had made there. She seemed almost ashamed, and nervous, it told me that, despite what it did for us, it was sorry I was hurt.

["This? Oh this is nothing don't worry about it"] I told her.

I opened the first aid kit and started cleaning the wound and disinfecting it. When that was done I pulled out a roll of bandages and held it out for her.

["Would you cut this please?"] I asked.

She delightfully sliced the bandage at the right point for me, she was pretty proud of those blades. Speaking of the blades, the one I grabbed still had my blood on it, so I grabbed a tissue and started cleaning it off once my hand was bandaged. I called the pawniard back to her pokeball and leaned back in my seat. It was a stressful operation but,

["Mission complete."]


End file.
